Trusting in Love (Carson Hill Ranch: Book 7)

By Amelia Rose

A contemporary cowboy romance novel.
Claire Calhoun wants nothing more than to continue her happy relationship with Deputy Peshenka but as he begins to press her for information about who she really is, she knows it can never work out. When he finally proposes, her heart says yes but her past speaks louder. Before she has the chance to make things right with Pesh, he's wounded in the line of duty. Can some help from Carson Hill's own posse bring him back to her safely in time for her to make it up to him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold Crown
• Release date: Jun 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311945280

Amelia Rose

Amelia Rose holds a PhD in Literature and Language; she specializes in teaching positive, self-reliant principles to children and adults of all ages.  Dr. Rose lives with her husband and three children in the Hudson Valley, New York area, where she enjoys the outdoors and spending time with her family and friends.   Matthew Maley is an artist with nearly twenty-five years in the fields of Illustration and Design. His work has appeared in publications such as Archie Comics, Marvel, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Children’s Television Workshop. He lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife, daughter, and a variety of animals.

Book preview

Trusting in Love

Carson Hill Ranch: Book Seven

AMELIA ROSE

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Amelia Rose.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To YOU, The reader.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for your emails.

Thank you for your reviews.

Thank you for reading and joining me on this road.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

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Chapter One

Deputy Peshenka stood at attention with his back pressed against the wall of the barn, his service revolver clenched in his right hand and held near his line of sight, his left hand on his radio. Inside the crumbling barn, he heard the maniacal laughter of a crazy man, one who seemed to have nothing to lose.

Henry, I’m gonna tell you one more time to put your pants back on and get out here, or it’s gonna get ugly! Sheriff McDade-Carson called out, her gun lowered near her hip but still in effective range.

And that’s what makes her the sheriff, she’s so calm about the whole damn situation, Pesh thought to himself, momentarily comforted by the fact that Amy was here and had taken charge. When he’d called for backup after the first gunshot—or what amounted to backup in Hale, Texas, whose population was more cows than people—Amy was the only one who answered. Of course, his only other choice had been Deputy Matthews, and he was halfway across the county on another call. Sheer dumb luck in the governor’s office a year before had only made it possible for Hale County to afford two full-time paid deputies for the first time since the Old West days of gunslingers and outlaws. The rest of the force was made up of volunteer reserve deputies, who only worked when they were called on, but they were more for things like helping move the booths at the annual summer fair than for matters of law enforcement.

Pesh, you take the eastern side of the barn. Watch for windows or holes between the planks, anywhere he could shoot. I’m going this way to see if there’s another way in. Pesh nodded his understanding and crouched low as he began his careful and quiet tiptoe around the side of the old building. Amy almost laughed for only a second at the site of her deputy dropping almost to the ground like some part of a SEAL team on a mission, but stopped herself. Pesh had only just graduated from the training program a year before. She’d rather have a deputy who took his job seriously than one who didn’t think about it enough.

Seeing him move in a textbook fashion made her begin to wonder. Maybe she was the one who didn’t know how to assess a situation. Her years as a Detroit police officer were long behind her, and she’d spent the time since then happily married to one of the Carson Hill Ranch sons. Her days were filled with getting bobcats out from under elderly people’s porches or settling a dispute about a game of darts in the town’s one bar and grill. Her evenings were spent on the sprawling 800,000 acre ranch her husband’s family owned, a place where the most action she’d be likely to see would be a runaway calf sprinting past the house.

But here she was, standing with a loaded gun pointed at the ground, ready to fire on one of her own townspeople if it came to that. Perhaps she’d become too laid back out here in this quiet but wild part of the state. But never let it be said that Amy McDade-Carson was too proud to admit her own failings. Taking a cue from her own deputy, she slid down silently until she was almost touching the ground, walking slowly to reach the other side of the barn.

When she and Pesh came face to face on the opposite side of the barn, taking stock of any other openings in the building, they nodded. Amy’s renewed sense of respectful examination of the job solidified a plan in her mind.

Now, we wait, she whispered. You take this door and I’ll go around the front. We’ll wait him out all day if that’s what it takes.

I’m sorry to second guess you in the middle of a crisis, Sheriff, but are we really just gonna leave an armed man in this lady’s barn? What about the damage he can do in there? Pesh asked carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was appear to question his superior officer, but he’d never heard of wait til the perp falls asleep or dies as a plan of action when he was doing his training.

You have any other ideas? Look at this place, Pesh! Amy said with a smile, gesturing with her free hand to the decrepit old building. If the owner’s lucky, Henry will do just enough damage that the insurance company pays to knock it down and drag away the debris! I’m just kidding. No, the real problem is manpower. You and I don’t have any business charging into a dark building filled with who knows what kind of tools and equipment, chasing after an asthmatic crazy man. He’ll either get tired and fall asleep—and I’ve had Henry in a cell overnight plenty enough times to know he snores like a freight train, in which case we’ll hear him—or he’ll come down off of whatever he’s on and come to his senses. Then we can approach him.

Wait a minute, you don’t think this is just another one of his drinking binges, do you? You think it’s something more serious? the deputy asked cautiously.

"I’m afraid I do. This isn’t like him. Henry’s the quintessential quirky town drunk, the kind you always see on TV. He’s been around Hale for a long time and he’s always had a little bit of an alcohol vapor swirling around him, but he’s never hurt anyone. The only times I’ve had to put him in a cell were because the weather was so bad, I was afraid he’d get sick out there if he couldn’t find his way home. He annoys the heck out of people and he’s a little bit of a menace, what with peeing in the church’s rose bushes when he’s on a bender, but he’s never done anyone any real harm.

But this time’s different. Something’s going on, and that means it’s either his health or his choice of poison. This isn’t the drunk Henry we see all the time. I want to wait him out.

Pesh nodded and looked around for something to sit on. Amy pointed to a small wooden shipping crate sticking up out of some tall grasses, warning him to watch for sitting on a rusty nail before heading around the front of the barn. She took a seat on the small house’s porch steps, ready to wait for quite some time.

The noises from inside the barn were less than holy, that was for sure. Henry screamed, ranted, cussed, and moaned, all the while banging away at anything he could find. At one point, it sounded like he was trying to come through the east side wall of the old barn, and Amy and Pesh both jumped to their feet. They weren’t afraid he would break his way out, more like he’d only succeed in bringing the whole structure down on his head.

Mrs. Anne, the homeowner, opened the front door a crack, keeping one hand on the door frame and the other one on the latch to the screen door. Is he still in there?

Yes, ma’am, so you stay put in the house, okay? I don’t want you to come out here and get caught in the middle of whatever that man decides to do today.

That crazy old jerk, Mrs. Anne muttered crossly to herself.

Is there anything dangerous in the barn, Mrs. Anne? Amy asked, keeping a watchful eye on the barn door before looking up at the old woman. Anything he could hurt himself with?

Well, there’s lots of stuff a fool could do himself no good with, she replied bitterly. Amy couldn’t be sure, but she almost got the impression that the homeowner might have hoped Henry would finally hurt himself badly enough that his troublemaking days would be over. There’s the riding mower, the yard tools, the wood chopping axe, my husband’s old slaughtering knives…

The list went on. That one building, no matter how loosely that term applied, was stockpiled with more ways to hurt someone than Amy cared to think about. And whatever was wrong with Henry, he was sitting smack in the middle of it, probably tearing apart something sharp at that very moment.

The sound waves from a small explosion shook the barn hard enough that a few shingles slid out of place on the roof and crashed to the ground. Amy and Mrs. Anne exchanged a look of shock before reacting.

No, Mrs. Anne, you stay here. Go back in the house and close the door! Amy called over her shoulder, bounding down the porch steps and crossing the small yard to the barn door. The woman turned to do as she was told, but couldn’t help flicking back the curtain on the kitchen window to watch what happened.

For the second time that day, and probably only the second time all month, Amy drew her weapon. She stood to the side of the wide door and called Henry’s name, but there was no sound from inside. A crash and a muffled yelp were all it took to make her force the door open, keeping it between her and whatever lunacy was taking place in the barn.

Instead of a deranged old man, she found her deputy pinning Henry to the ground with a knee in his back, a rope cinching the man’s hands behind his back and connecting them to his ankles that were pulled up over where the seat of his pants should have been if he’d still been wearing any. Amy stared, dumbfounded, while Pesh smiled up at her.

Sorry for not saying something, but when I heard that explosion, I thought he might be hurt in here, Pesh explained. Amy noticed that Henry’s clothes were singed and a wisp of smoke curled upward from Pesh’s shirt sleeve. A burning smell wafted out of the dark barn’s interior and assaulted her nose with a harshly chemical scent.

So you thought you’d hog tied him? Amy asked in disbelief, finally finding words in this situation. You know, department-issued handcuffs would have worked just as well.

I know, Pesh answered with a sheepish grin. But I moved to Texas over a year ago, and this is the first big dumb animal I’ve had the chance to rope. This is as close as I’ll ever get to being a cowboy!

Amy shook her head and walked away from the